Defensive pest Bowen earned his due

It wasn’t long into his first training camp with the Spurs that Manu Ginobili got to know Bruce Bowen.

Ginobili was a rookie fresh off the plane from Argentina in the fall of 2002, determined to prove he could play in the NBA. In an early camp scrimmage, Bowen — then 31 and in his second season with the Spurs — was assigned to guard him.

“He was crazy annoying,” Ginobili said. “He was rough. He was trying to show me what the NBA was all about.”

It is quite possible the first NBA bruises the man they call El Contusión received were administered by Bowen. There was no way for Ginobili to know then just what a badge of honor that was.

Tonight, Bowen’s No. 12 will be raised to the AT&T Center rafters as the Spurs honor the former defensive ace with the highest tribute the franchise can bestow.

A member of three NBA title teams, and an eight-time member of the league’s All-Defensive team, Bowen will become the seventh Spurs player to have his jersey retired. He joins David Robinson, George Gervin, James Silas, Johnny Moore, Avery Johnson and Sean Elliott.

It is an outcome Bowen could not have envisioned after going undrafted out of Cal-State Fullerton in 1993. It would take nearly seven years, playing in France and the Continental Basketball Association and with four other NBA teams, before Bowen became a household name with the Spurs.

“I think it really shows how you might be a role player, but there’s a place for role players as well,” said Bowen, 40, who will be honored in a ceremony after tonight’s game against Minnesota.

“It’s the by-product of staying the course, and look what happens.”

Bowen arrived in San Antonio before the start of the 2001-02 season, having earned second-team All-Defense honors in Miami the year before. Here, he found a team that not only had a role for him to fill, but appreciated him for it.

It was a perfect marriage.

For eight seasons, up until his retirement in 2009, Bowen terrorized Spurs opponents, setting the team’s reputation as a hard-nosed defensive club.

“He gave us an edge, night in and night out,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He set a tone for our team that they followed.”

At 6.1 points per game, Bowen boasts the lowest career scoring average of any player in the AT&T Center rafters. But he also owns more championship rings than any of them.

A 6-foot-7 small forward renowned as the premier perimeter defender of his era, Bowen earned first-team All-Defense recognition five consecutive seasons from 2003-08.

Yet Bowen didn’t set out to make a career of being a defensive pest.

“Unbeknownst to a lot of people, I had my days of scoring prior to the NBA,” said Bowen, now an analyst for ESPN who still makes his home in San Antonio.

“It was a matter of wanting to be on the floor. If you could do something that would warrant that, you may have an opportunity to fit in with the group.”